


Burning Gold and Broken Chains

by Soaring_through_the_stars



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bad Luck, Bittersweet Ending, Found Soulmate, Implied Character Death, M/M, Mandorin June Soulmate Contest, Soulmate AU, Soulmates are shown by rings connected by chains, The helmet comes off bad version, This was supposed to be fluffy and happy and then at the very end I said no, no beta we die like men, oops still can't make it happy, really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24923224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soaring_through_the_stars/pseuds/Soaring_through_the_stars
Summary: CT-113 never wanted a soulmate, and his helmet showed that.Corin wanted a soulmate, and he laid his head bare.If only his soulmate was uncovered as well.
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Corin the Stormtrooper (Rescue and Regret), Corin the Stormtrooper (Rescue and Regret)/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 79





	1. The Beginning and End and Misery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyIrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyIrina/gifts).



Snowtrooper CT-113 has never had the best of luck.

The average age of finding your soulmate is 18 or younger, no matter the species, no matter how improbable with an entire galaxy of people. Kids would be walking around when they’d be yanked to a halt. An earing connecting a chain to their soulmate. If they didn’t have ears, it would be a ring. If they didn’t have fingers, it would be a collar, or an armband, or any other loop around a body part.

But the universe seemed to favor earrings. There was something poetic in people linked by their heads, a melding of minds.

CT-113 has long since passed 18.

It didn’t really matter anyway. He had the bad luck to be born into a family of the empire, put into an accelerated program to become a Trooper by the time he could hold a gun, and when the universe favors earrings being forced to cover your ears tends to prevent a connection.

There was a shockingly high number of Troopers that never found a soulmate, but it didn’t really matter. They were just cogs in the machine supporting the empire, and most sacrificed their life for it anyway.

Who cares about soulmates when he won’t live long enough to live with them?

There were ones that hoped, of course there were, but CT-113 was glad he probably would never meet his. When he was younger, he had been told many stories of soulmates by his mom, ones that made him dream of the day he’d meet his pair and never let go. He refused to be like his mom, who’d been stopped by a chain the night before her wedding, who’d had a single night of love like burning gold before being married to his father. He had once wanted to have the good luck to meet his soulmate.

His father had changed that.

After his mom died, he heard nothing but horror stories of soulmates. Of his father, who met his on the battlefield when his helmet was knocked off, who was so horrified that not only was his soulmate the enemy but a _man_ that he had shot him immediately, and took the earing out of his own ear so as not to keep anything as a reminder of that tainted soulmate. Of nurses in hospitals delivering babies only to be stopped by a chain connected to a tiny ear, a match made too, too young. Of people going to comfort friends at funerals only to be stopped from leaving the casket. Of slaves following their masters only to be stopped as they passed another in servitude, for their masters to laugh and laugh and force them to wear a broken chain, their pair dragged away.

There was a reason Troopers never took off their helmets, and he was thankful for that good luck.

Trudging through the snow toward an avalanche he knew did not contain what they were going to search for, he thought back on that last glimpse of the Asset, the _child_. The one who saved him from a painful fall, whom he was too fond of.

He wondered if the child would live long enough to meet their soulmate.

He wondered why he cared.

* * *

CT-113 had had the bad luck, once his superior realized that only worthless pawns were trapped in the snow, to be demoted. No longer a SnowTrooper, he mourned the fact that the basic armor had nowhere near the cooling capability that the SnowTrooper armor had heating, but he was worth even less now, so he could understand it.

None of that mattered now that he was being marched toward his death, but he could have at least spent his last moments comfortable.

It was good luck that, since his helmet had long been removed, he wasn’t stopped on his march by a chain, but that was a paltry comfort. Kicked onto his knees, watching his fellow soldiers be executed one by one, even though he had no relationship with them other than coworkers, cemented the realization that, oh, he would die here and there would be nobody to care, not even to give him the dignity of sparing his body from the scavengers. He would be left to rot in the gritty sand digging into his knees.

At least his soulmate would have the good luck never to meet him. His luck, though fickle, definitely leaned toward bad.

Then a tiny, wrinkled, green hand brought salvation.

* * *

Being with the Mandalorian was the best luck he had ever gotten, and he was even allowed to be named instead of designated. Instead of CT-113 he was Corin Valentis―though he wasn’t as happy at that second part―and he had, dare he say it, a family.

A motley family of other rebel imps, Mandalorians, spice runners, and random people, but a family nonetheless.

If only he could feel worthy of it.

He had the good luck to be in a family he felt comfortable in, but the bad luck to have not found his soulmate among them.

He did not even dare to dream that Din―perfect, powerful, _loving_ Din―could possibly be his soulmate. He could not bear to get his hopes up that someone as worthy as him could be matched with Din, only for them to be inevitably shattered.

He just took the moments as they came, and he treasured them as burning gold.

* * *

He never wanted it confirmed like this.

Never, never like this.

They came out of nowhere, DeathTroopers and brainwashed force-sensitives and mercenaries, and they never stood a chance. It was purely good luck the Child was with Mose instead of with them, and Corin was viciously pleased he could shove it in the scum’s face.

That pleasure was gone, now.

They were shot out of space, crash landing on a barren desert planet. Corin was already nursing a shoulder injury, and the cumulation of wounds from burning shrapnel and head trauma prevented them from putting up much of a fight.

They were dragged from the twisted remains of the beloved Razor Crest, too exhausted and weak and _hurting_ to put up more than token resistance. Shoved onto their knees, blasters against their heads, they were forced to face each other.

Corin stared at the gleaming beskar helmet, reading the acceptance and sorrow hidden behind it, and closed his eyes.

Unlike the last time he was on his knees, helmetless on a desert planet, there would be no small green hand this time.

He was startled by a sudden thump against the sand, absent of the sound of a blaster, followed by a cacophony of laughter.

He opened his eyes.

He opened his eyes to painfully bright, gleaming metal.

He opened his eyes to painfully bright, gleaming metal _right in front of him_.

Din’s helmet lay in front of him.

Din’s face was _bared_ to him.

Din’s ear was _connected_ to his by a shiny, delicate, intricate beskar chain, a symbol of unique, all-encompassing, _rare_ love that was one in a billion, one in a galaxy.

And all of the laughter made sense.

Pain―bright red, _searing_ pain―wiped away all of the burning gold.

Bad, bad luck.

And the universe mourned.

And the universe wept.

And the universe vowed never again.

And soulmates ceased to exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I make a second chapter of different perspectives as soulmates are erased? Would you guys like that? Give me feedback!


	2. The Aftermath and Future and Blessed Peace

The Empire’s troops don’t know what they have done at first. How can they?

The universe can barely believe it.

As the two bodies fall to the ground, connected by a newly formed chain, it is the height of hilarity. Two of the most wanted people in the galaxy, a fabled Mandalorian and a traitorous Stormtrooper, are soulmates? And they hadn’t even figured it out until their deaths? What can they do but chuckle and guffaw?

Chuckle and guffaw and _scream_ , that is.

The ones closest to the pair notice first, as chains flash into existence one by one, passing through all barriers and connecting them to soulmates lightyears away, connecting even those who have found their soulmate and removed earring and chain. Linking ear to ear, arm to arm, person to person before melting.

Melting through flesh and bone and soulmate bonds. Ripping and searing and snapping, leaving nothing but burning flesh and aching, hollow, broken souls behind. Revenge laid out in burning gold.

The worst crime in the universe cannot go unpunished, can it?

* * *

The Child feels it next. How can he not?

The backlash in the Force almost knocks him out, but the knowledge that his buir are gone, the two that had the calmest aura he had ever seen, is what brings tears to his eyes.

They were his anchor, his link to the good of the world, all healing each other from the wounds they carried so, so deep. How can he resist the call to fall without roots?

He didn’t even notice as his ears are connected together with a small chain. He doesn’t even notice as it slowly fades away.

The new, gentle ache, where his bond to himself disappeared, how can it compare to the hole in his heart?

It can’t.

He screams his pain in burning gold.

* * *

Force-sensitives around the universe are knocked to the ground.

The educated ones know what it meant. The young and the ignorant do not.

Oh, how those who don’t know are envied.

The turbulence. The stinging ache as bonds form only to be tugged away, punishment for not defending the most precious thing in the universe.

And the most powerful Dark Force they have ever felt.

* * *

Paz and Raga are sparring when they find out they are soulmates. They freeze when they feel the bond, like they can easily become their best with the other there. The bond went away after, and they know that it won’t be the same, it won’t be as complete, but they can’t give up on each other.

They’ve stuck together through much worse, after all.

* * *

Zev’sonya groans when she and Leave-it are soulmates, but she is glad. It is nice to have someone to rely on, for once. She is terrified beyond belief when he can’t breathe, but she knows the bond would be there to help him through it.

She is devastated when the bond breaks, terrified it would mean less time with him; however, though the universe is punishing everyone, it is still able to grant one last boon: healing.

* * *

Mose is ridiculously glad when his wrists are connected by a chain. It is always varied with the ones where someone is their own person to bring out the best in them, and therefore their own soulmate. Sometimes the chains form immediately, sometimes it takes years.

He is glad he won’t bring a child into the world like his parent had, to suffer. Though the bond is gone, he knows he can feel that confident in himself once again.

* * *

Everywhere bonds are formed and broken.

Viciously, if they had sinned grievously against the universe. Their bonds are torn apart, they can never even look at another person without crying out. The leaders of the empire, the slave traders.

Stinging, if they took the easy way. If they went along with it even though there was minimal personal risk. Every time they form a new relationship, they are sharply reminded of their failures. The trained force sensitives, the leaders of planets where it was easier to give in and take bribes.

Aching, if they were a regular person. They couldn’t do much, but they didn’t suffer needlessly. They have a bruise that will never fully heal, but it can be soothed. The farmers, the traders, the normal people.

Gently, if they were the suffering. They did not deserve what the universe put them through, and it was sorry. They feel no pain, only a crying melancholy. The slaves, the Child.

Not a bond remains. Not a soul is left untouched.

No soulmates are left.

* * *

On a far-off planet, covered in dusty sand and pristine snow, lies a monument to a past time.

Those who know they commit cruelties, who take advantage of others for their own gain, avoid it. To even come near the planet causes an intense, screaming pain inside of them, too painful to bear. They have tried countless times to destroy it, but they all fail.

It’s protected by the universe.

It is a pilgrimage spot, a place to go to be centered to the soul, to feel the effect of a sentient universe firsthand, to prove themselves.

Ships can only land in one spot of the planet, and how worthy you are is determined by how close you get to the other side.

Though few have ever reached it besides a certain group, everyone knows what lies there on a plateau of stone and ice and burning gold.

* * *

Perhaps, in a far-off time, almost a thousand years in the future, a person in a brown robe, standing but two feet tall, will land on that planet in a Mandalorian ship.

Perhaps, too, that person will be a Mandalorian, one of many, now, though with a strange helmet able to fit the long ears.

Perhaps that person will have taken the Creed to make up for a moment of past, debilitating weakness that could have destroyed everything.

Perhaps that person will have cleansed the soul through fire.

Perhaps that person will make it all of the way to the plateau, climbing it with ease, the ice giving way to solid stone where each foot lands.

Perhaps at the top, they will stop in front of two solid beskar statues, made by the universe itself, standing hand in hand, connected at the ear by a long, delicate, intricate beskar chain.

Perhaps, as the person walks forward to lay a hand on the helmet held under one of the figure’s arms, the statues will move, still holding hands but making space between them, just enough for the smaller person to fit.

Perhaps that person will also take off the helmet, set in on the ground, and join the other two figures in beskar, chain connecting both ears together.

Perhaps soulmates will exist for one last brief, burning gold moment in time.

Perhaps, on a far-off planet, covered in dusty sand and pristine snow, a family will be complete once more.

Perhaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! This is actually completed. There is a bittersweet ending, which may not be the happy ending I attempted, but hey, it's better than nothing, right?
> 
> Give me feedback and comments because I'm needy.


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